Resisting Recovery Rhetoric: A Critical Discourse Analysis and Counter Perspectives from People With Substance Use Issues in Rural Ontario

The recovery concept informs research, policies, and practices related to mental health and substance use in Canada, which has consequences for people with substance use issues in rural areas. Although recovery is espoused as a personal journey with no “right” approach, dominant representations of recovery permeate public and private minds to (re)produce an ideal presumably urban-centered recovery, which may stigmatize people in rural communities. This qualitative, exploratory study draws on Foucauldian and intersectionality principles to examine power relations embedded in recovery discourse. A critical discourse analysis (CDA) using van Dijk’s Sociocognitive Approach (SCA) is applied to 40 semi-structured interviews with people who experience substance use issues in rural Ontario. Findings indicate that although dominant assumptions of substance use recovery are reinforced by people with lived experience in rural spaces, they are also rejected and resisted in ways that expose oppression, counter dominance, and promote more equitable alternatives.